Template:Summary/2014-2015 round1/Wikimedia CH

Program focus: Community support, Outreach (includes, offline, GLAM, education, and thematic programs), Movement and association sustainability

In 2013, Wikimedia CH started its professionalization process with the hiring of a CAO, followed by community liaisons for the German and Italian parts of Switzerland in 2013 and the French one this year. While this significantly impacts our operating costs, the community support team is now complete and we are able to support users and help grow content in each of our three national languages (see branches 1&2 of our Strategic plan). By intervening upstream, where volunteers often can not, WMCH's core ambition is to add significant value to volunteer work - not replace it.

With a Swiss population of 8 millions compared to the overall 280 million French, German and Italian speakers, we believe that the added value of Wikimedia CH resides in freeing content and retaining existing contributors (which we can support across national borders) rather than aim for a user recruitment strategy (except for fixing the gender gap challenge).

With the upcoming launch of projects such as Wikivillage in Western Switzerland and its expected national roll-out in the following years, we are focusing on long term projects that will feed Wikimedia projects with qualitative substance while aiming at economies of scale. In order to do so, half of the time from the community liaisons' schedule will be allocated to establishing valuable partnerships at an institutional level.

The incentive on keeping a strong chapter present in Switzerland also lies in the fact that the country is consistently forward thinking in terms of freeing content (launch of Open Government Data in September 2013; Open Research Platform kicking off end 2014): thus, the chapter's strength and opportunities rest on its ability to establish early on a sustainable flow of content for Wikimedia projects with institutional data. This is why we chose to also focus on Offline tools and Outreach initiatives (branches 3 & 4). This focus is materialized by a major step forward in the support of the Offline technology with the creation of a small software development team.